Gender Matters

According to some sales experts, no matter how good your selling skills,you could put a sale at risk if you don’t follow some basic rules for selling to the opposite gender. This is not just some politically correct theorizing. In fact, two such experts took the notion seriously enough to research and write a book on the subject. What did they find? Good news and bad news.

The bad news is that the same communications barriers that challenge Venus and Mars in marriage are alive and well on any sales call. Sales professionals who rely on a one-call-fits-all approach are likely to find themselves closing fewer sales and alienating more prospects and customers.

But the good news is that your potential to increase sales is enormous if you can understand how men and women communicate, while being flexible enough to use characteristics typical of each gender when needed.

Sales is a process of influence and “we are more inclined to be influenced by behavior that we perceive as similar to ours,” observes Lee Robert, who with Judith Tingley recently co-authored GenderSell: How to Sell to the Opposite Sex (Simon & Schuster, 1999). “If you have already been successful at selling to one gender,” they claim, “there is every reason to believe you can double your sales revenue by increasing your sales to the other gender.”

The cardinal rule, in a nutshell, is this: Women want relationships and men want information. Men aren’t going to clinch a sale with a female buyer by wowing her with numbers, and women aren’t going to impress a male purchaser by trying to build rapport. A quick look at men’s and women’s biggest gripes about each other as salespeople confirms this. “What women say they most dislike in men is that they are pushy, aggressive, just in it for the deal and not really interested in meeting their needs,” says Tingley, who conducted research with more than 600 buyers and sellers in putting together GenderSell. “What men disliked about women was that they didn’t have the breadth or depth of product knowledge that the men wanted.”

While these concerns may be only perceptions, men and women clearly must alter their communication techniques in order to shatter the stereotypes. How? Follow these three simple rules, outlined in GenderSell and practiced by successful sales professionals in the field.

Men selling to women should:

1) Slow down and focus on the relationship.
For the most part, a woman is buying into the relationship she has built with a salesperson rather than the product he is selling. And she will usually pay more to buy from someone she likes and trusts, even if she knows she can get a lower price elsewhere. By building a sincere connection with a female customer instead of zipping through reams of information, you’re much more likely to close the sale, even though it may take longer than with a male customer.

Dennis Carpenter, a sales consultant with Sport Honda in Silver Spring, MD, understands this principle well. “When I’m dealing with a male, things usually go pretty fast,” says Carpenter. “Typically, a guy will know exactly what he wants and has probably already been to a couple of places. The purchase decision is faster. When selling to a woman, I’ll take more time and establish a relationship. I know that if she doesn’t trust what I’m telling her, she’s not going to buy a car from me.”

Men need to recognize, as Carpenter has, that selling to women is a process, not an event; that they must restrain their impulse to spout data and gallop towards closure, instead allowing the woman to set the pace and signal the close.

2) Listen actively.
A man can hear every word a woman is telling him, but if he’s not listening in a specific way, she’ll believe he isn’t really hearing her and isn’t interested in her opinions. Sound complicated? It isn’t. When dealing with female customers, men just need to change the way they listen. “This means using eye contact, responding to statements with ‘uh huh’ and ‘yes, I see,’ and not trying to come up with a solution too quickly,” says Robert. “Most men are bottom line, fix-it oriented. They often make an assumption that they know the solution half way through what the woman is trying to say, and they can lose a sale that way.”

Active listening is also about patience. David Hopkins, director of airline marketing at Rolls-Royce North America, has closed multibillion dollar deals by knowing when to talk and when to listen. “I spend more time listing to female customers,” he explains. “Generally when a female has something to say, it’s pretty important. But I know their ideas are sometimes a work in progress and might dry up if I interrupt too much. With men, I’ll interrupt more to get them to clarify what they’re telling me.”

3) Take her seriously.
Research shows that women garner less respect than men in most buying situations, and they know it. But women want to be taken seriously, and the salesperson who can project his sincere interest in her ideas and her value as a customer is the one most likely to win the sale. Taking a woman seriously begins with a firm handshake and eye contact when you meet her and follows with asking questions (and listening to the answers), which demonstrates your concern with meeting her purchase needs and knowing her as a person.

Men also need to understand that many women come into the sales process looking for information and will rely on the salesperson to educate them, say Tingley and Robert. Their questions may seem basic but should be answered thoughtfully, seriously and not in a “dumbed-down” manner.

Women selling to men should:

1) Know the product.
It sounds basic, but men generally feel that women don’t know their product or service well enough to provide them with all the information they’re looking for. And lack of information can result in lack of a sale. What this generally means is learning more about the numbers and the technology of what you’re selling: How much will your product help his company’s bottom line? How fast can the computer you’re selling download the images he needs? What’s the compression ratio on that V-8 engine he’s considering? “There is no substitute for product knowledge, particularly when you’re working with male customers,” write Tingley and Robert. “Bite the bullet, get down and dirty, hire a tutor or a mentor or a coach – but learn the facts.”

Getting down and dirty was what endeared Stephanie McClure, a music consultant with Digital Music Express (DMX), to one of her male clients. Stopping by a new customer’s office as they were preparing to install the DMX music system one day, McClure rolled up her sleeves and pitched in. “I was all dressed up in my business clothes, but I got down on my hands and knees and helped them to run the wire. Knowing that I wasn’t afraid to get dirty, to jump in and help out, seemed to give them a lot of respect for me,” she says. Knowing details about installation as well as other technical aspects of the product got her the sale in the first place. “I use more information than people are looking for, particularly with men, to establish the fact that I am knowledgeable about my product,” says McClure.

2) Speak the language of men.
Think BLUF: Bottom Line Up Front. If you want to grab the attention of your male audience, be direct and get to the bottom line early on. You can fill in details later, if they want them. Elizabeth Terrell, a major account manager with UPS agrees and says women need to “be deliberate, know what you’re talking about and don’t put yourself in a position where you don’t know an answer and so get flustered.” She should know. Solely responsible for bringing in $2.5 million in new contracts this year, Terrell by the end of April already had sealed up about $1 million of it, 99 percent coming from top-level males at major businesses.

It’s also a good idea to toss in a story about a sports figure to drive home a point you’re trying to make. It will show you’re “in the know” and will allow you to connect with your audience using a subject they all enjoy.

3) Project confidence and credibility.
Projecting confidence starts before one word is spoken through use of eye contact, dynamic body language and dress. “How you look and carry yourself sets the tone for the sales call,” says UPS’s Terrell. “I dress conservatively. I look neat and clean so the customer knows our solutions are going to be neat and clean.”

Inner confidence comes from having intimate knowledge of your product and knowing that there’s not a question a client can ask that you can’t answer. But all the knowledge in the world won’t prevent a woman from appearing uncertain if she uses weak language to make her points. “Be careful of disclaimers and apologies like, ‘I’m not sure if this is true, but…’ and ‘I know this may sound strange, but…’ because they weaken what’s being said,” Robert cautions.

Follow these guidelines and you’ll find the mystery and frustration of selling to the other gender is gone. As Tingley says, “If you can learn the skills and attitudes to sell effectively to the opposite sex, you can sell to anyone.”

In the final analysis, it takes a professional to sell to anyone, regardless of gender. Using the techniques outlined in GenderSell will help sales professionals expand their selling repertoire to include some new techniques rather than relying on the same ones year after year. As society changes, sales techniques must keep pace to remain effective.